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Between these 2 species will one's population explode faster? How long does pregnancy take? Will the parents completely finish off all their offspring if they are hungry?

i've had both. in my experience, guppies will reproduce quicker. as far as eating their young. if the young can find places to hide, they wont get touched.

as far as basicly starving them to eat their offspring, that brings up other areas for concern, if you want either one and need something to control the population, just get a larger fish, like gouramis or some thing similar to do that, as they are larger normally and will eat them even if not starving.

but there is always one solution, keep all of one sex of the breed and you should be alot safer

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Thanks! I'm still not sure what I want to go with... once I get my tank set up that's when I'll decide. I'm hoping to set up a 20 long which would work well for a decent population for either guppies or platies.

BTW, the gestation period for both is around a month, though it is common for platies to go a tiny bit longer.

IME, platies are hardier when you get them from most stores while guppies can be very weak. After you breed them, though, I would think they'd be on a more equal plane. Also, platies are less likely to hold in their fry when scared (also IME).

So you are saying livebearers can 'lose' fry while pregnant if they get spooked?

Hi there,
while guppies may reproduce faster, unless
you are willing to pay the big $$ to get some
high quality fish, or get them from local breeders,
they wont be hardy tough or long lived. Commercially bred guppies are notoriously plagued with disease and genetic disorders due to massive inbreeding.

In a planted tank, if its heavily planted with live
plants, many fry will survive.
In my experience, guppies are less likely to eat their young than platys are, but platy fry are born larger, and within a shorter time are too large for adult platys to eat. Platy young grow quicker than guppy young do,
and are longer lived.

Platys are super hardy too.

For both species pregnancy takes about 1 month.
Mothers deliver approx. 50-200 young, depending on health, size, and age of the female.

Yes, livebearers can abort fry if they are spooked.
This is why a heavily planted tank is a much better option than removing pregnant mothers to breeding traps.
I only tried 2x to move a pregnant guppy to a breeding net, both times I lost all the fry and the mother guppy. I would highly advise not doing that yourself.
Plants like hornwort, cabomba, ambulia, java moss,
java fern, basically any dense leaved plant will allow
places from fry to hide.

Platys are much larger than guppies, with old females
reaching 2.5 inches or more.
I like platys more and I think you would find them a better choice, unless of course you can get high quality locally bred ones or "purebreds" from a high end breeder.


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Personally i will go with Guppys & if you have lots of floating plants, the fry survival rate will be alot. You can have a low light tank, with some floating plants & only Guppys. The colours that they'll produce are superb.

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10g Freshwater:
1-Albino Corydoras Catfish